Boise an up-and-coming Rocky Mountain city? (real estate, how much, house)
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Real numbers from BLS...In Nov 2010 Boise-Nampa MSA's unemployment rate was 9.9% while SLC's was 7.1% (7.2% in Ogden, 6.9% in Provo). Boise's unemployment rate is higher than that of Spokane, Phoenix, Seattle, Albuquerque, Tucson, and Denver. Slightly lower than Portland, San Diego and San Francisco while much lower than LA, Reno and Las Vegas. Boise ranked 253rd out of 372 metros for the lowest unemployment. Who knows about underemployment which I suspect even out of recession is a big problem in Boise. As noted in other posts this is often by choice.
With that said it sounds like things may be improving a bit based on local news as new stores come in and some local companies expand. And on a personal level my step-dad knows a couple of guys from Micron who haven't been able to get a job in Boise for the last two years and they both found decent jobs in the last few weeks in Boise. I can't tell you about pay but the position themselves are comparable.
Even in a bad economy, there are more opportunities in a larger city to find a job in your field. Used to specialize in selling industrial labels for bar code printers, clean room labels and labels for manufacturers. Here in Boise there are only 1-2 companies that sell this product, but not enough to hire an additional sales person. Plus you would have to travel through half of the state to drum up enough business. In Phoenix, there are dozens of companies that sell industrial labels and I was able to find enough clients in one zip code to have a nice little business for myself.
Think underemployment is big in Boise as well. When I got let go I never filed for unemployment, so I never showed up in the unemployment numbers. Took six months to find a fulltime job, but I am making a lot less money than I was or could be making in Phoenix, SLC or Denver.
Boise is similar to Tucson, the joke there was "half your pay was in sunshine", guess in Boise the joke needs to be that "half your pay is up in the mountains or in the rivers". For all of the amenities in Boise I am willing to be underpaid to live here.
During the mid-90s Hewlett-Packard closed the Disc Memory Division in Boise, and offered
to transfer employees to other HP locations in WA and OR. However, most elected to find
other jobs in the area as they didn't want to leave Boise. Some of those who accepted
employment at HP plants in WA and OR came back to ID after they got homesick.
Boise has a population of 205,707 while the entire Gem State is at 1,545,801 people. Boise
has been referred to as being the largest small town in the USA. This is not a big city by
any stretch of the imagination compared to Denver and Salt Lake City. Idaho, once you
leave the Boise MSA, is very isolated and lightly populated.
During the mid-90s Hewlett-Packard closed the Disc Memory Division in Boise, and offered
to transfer employees to other HP locations in WA and OR. However, most elected to find
other jobs in the area as they didn't want to leave Boise. Some of those who accepted
employment at HP plants in WA and OR came back to ID after they got homesick.
Boise has a population of 205,707 while the entire Gem State is at 1,545,801 people. Boise
has been referred to as being the largest small town in the USA. This is not a big city by
any stretch of the imagination compared to Denver and Salt Lake City. Idaho, once you
leave the Boise MSA, is very isolated and lightly populated.
Boise's MSA is well over 600,000 as of 2009. The 2010 cencus will give us an accurate figure. However, this will exceed Spokane, making Boise the 3rd largest metro area in the 3-state NW region. Idaho should also show growth in the Twin/IF/Poky area as well.
During the mid-90s Hewlett-Packard closed the Disc Memory Division in Boise, and offered
to transfer employees to other HP locations in WA and OR. However, most elected to find
other jobs in the area as they didn't want to leave Boise. Some of those who accepted
employment at HP plants in WA and OR came back to ID after they got homesick.
Boise has a population of 205,707 while the entire Gem State is at 1,545,801 people. Boise has been referred to as being the largest small town in the USA. This is not a big city by
any stretch of the imagination compared to Denver and Salt Lake City. Idaho, once you
leave the Boise MSA, is very isolated and lightly populated.
If it means another wave of speculators, greedy investors, equity rich parasites, and endless development you can have it.
So you're saying Real/Estate speculation from outside interests/people moving to Boise bid up the cost of residential housing (single-family) OR "endless development" of single-family dominated developments put so many new houses on the Boise market that equities of existing residences were diluted ?
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